What's Your 3rd Favorite Emotion

What’s Your 3rd Favorite Emotion?

John Paul Derryberry

It's not too often that a group invites me to work with elementary-age kids on emotions. Most of the time, we think that the target audience for emotional and mental health conversations is a smidge older. Heavy topics for such early-developing brains are the most common responses I get from groups inquiring about bringing me in. There is some truth to that: you want to present information in a way that allows exploration and curiosity to take hold in little ones, and even emotions and thoughts can be heavy at that age.

In those early years of schooling, we can feel left out, isolated, dismissed, and many other things. Having good conversations with our little ones can create a healthy examination of emotions and thoughts, the good thoughts and emotions, and unhealthy ones, too. As I finished a session with many elementary-age kids in Northern Iowa, I asked if there were questions. Dozens of hands shot into the sky, about a dozen more than when I do adult sessions. Curiosity is baked into being young; we should never lose that.

After answering several questions about where emotions come from, and why we react to them so strongly. Layup questions that I get all the time. I got stumped on a question I had not heard in all my years of storytelling and presenting. "What's your 3rd favorite emotion?" I stopped in my tracks and had to ponder ranking emotions, even if that is something we should engage in. We all have been experiencing emotions for as long as we can remember, but I doubt we have sat down and ranked them.

For me, it is easy to say joy is number one; nothing beats unbridled joy. Just allowing yourself to be happy, act happy, and bounce around like life is grand. So few of us allow joy to be let out. The second is excitement, the energy that conjours up in us before an event we are excited to attend, is just fun. We run through all the possibilities of what could occur, what might transpire, and how we will feel after it is all over. Excitement is hope set on fire, and I enjoy playing in that arena.

The third, though, is Sadness. Sadness gets a bad rap. It tells us that something we thought was good didn't turn out correctly, ended in a way we didn't want, or that we are missing a part of ourselves we once had. It gives life depth, showing us we will miss people, places, moments, and time. Way too. Many of us spend too much time trying to avoid being sad because we do not want it to reveal what it teaches us about life. Cherish it, know that things can not last forever, and know that no matter how hard we try not to feel Sadness, it will come eventually.

I'll be honest and say I do not remember my answer to these profound questions two weeks ago, but that student gave me something to think about. And yes, Sadness and all it shows about life is my third favorite emotion. We are supposed to be sad when relationships end; it means that we cared despite knowing that Sadness was probably happening at some point. And that, my friends, is the best way to live life.